How to design nuclear sanctions that don’t backfire

On May 2, 2011, a US Navy SEAL helicopter soft-crashed into the side of Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Within the hour, bin Laden was identified and assassinated. The world’s most wanted terrorist had lived in Pakistan for years, less than a mile from Pakistan’s top military academy. Despite harboring the architect of the 9/11 attacks on the United States, Pakistan faced no invasion, regime change, or “shock and awe” campaign. But the United States invaded Afghanistan within weeks of 9/11/2001, accusing its leaders of supporting terrorism, and invaded Iraq in 2003 on even less substantial grounds.

Beyond a broader US belief in the strategic value of Pakistan, there was a critical factor in the US mission to kill bin Laden: Pakistan had nuclear weapons. It is an unfortunate truth that nuclear weapons deter invasion, transforming outcast states into all-but unassailable ones. As the American government engaged in regime change across the Middle East, Pakistan’s government remained untouched.

It is also unfortunate that the international community’s main mechanism for pressuring countries with nuclear weapons and attempting to prevent nuclear proliferation—comprehensive sanctions—often further accelerates the very programs it aims to destroy or influence. This “sanctions paradox,” as the American political scientist Daniel Drezner calls it, is among the most dangerous in geopolitics: When Western governments enact sanctions to push states like North Korea and Iran away from nuclear development, they can inadvertently drive those states toward the bomb at increasing speeds. Economic isolation creates conditions that are conducive to nuclear weapons development.

The sanctions paradox does not mean that sanctions cannot work. To the contrary, it highlights the need for a more nuanced and realistic approach to counter-proliferation sanctions policy. To prevent sanctions from backfiring, policy makers must make them more targeted, incremental, and multilateral—with clear pathways for de-escalation and off-ramping.

Why sanctions fail. There are three primary ways that economic-pressure campaigns can turn into nuclear-acceleration programs. The first is a siege. When comprehensive sanctions strike, targeted regimes experience them as existential attacks rather than focused policy tools: They manifest as crumbling economies and suffering populations. Nuclear weapons then become necessities, rather than side projects.

The siege transformation occurs at multiple levels. Leadership closes ranks, and moderates lose influence to hardliners. Units that previously competed for support, like the intelligence service and the military command, unite behind the nuclear program. Even civilian populations rally behind nuclear programs that become symbols of resistance and hope, promising that deterrence will prevent future pressure. Once a regime psychologically commits to nuclear acquisition, setbacks and new sanctions only reinforce the siege narrative, justifying a framing of internal dissent as foreign-sponsored threats or propaganda.

Sanctions can also fail because of inadvertent acceleration. Necessity is the mother of invention, and comprehensive sanctions create necessity like little else. Cut off from trade and international collaboration, nations with nuclear ambitions become creative. Sanctions reshape entire economies around nuclear objectives: Black markets orient themselves around dual-use technologies, industries reorganize around the indigenous production of previously imported components, and innovation under pressure leads to unexpected breakthroughs.

The North Korean nuclear program was developed under some of the most restrictive sanctions in the world, but it surprised intelligence agencies with its advanced capabilities. In Iran, the development and configuration of IR-9 centrifuges leapfrogged earlier models. Beyond purely technical achievements, sanctioned states also develop new proxy networks, sophisticated money-laundering techniques, and more resilient supply chains.

A third way sanctions fail is by eliminating off-ramping when it’s needed most. Sanctions systematically destroy diplomatic relationships: Communication channels close, ambassadors are expelled, memberships are suspended, and summits are canceled. Win-win solutions become impossible as the elimination of regular, high-level contact multiplies misunderstandings and solidifies hardline positions.

North Korea: a case study of nuclear acquisition. Perhaps the clearest example of the sanctions paradox comes from North Korea’s nuclear program. The country currently possesses a nuclear stockpile estimated at around 50 warheads, as well as missiles capable of reaching the continental United States. North Korea’s story begins in the 1990s, when it first threatened to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Initial sanctions, intended to pressure North Korea into returning to the negotiating table, instead triggered the sanctions paradox. As sanctions tightened further following the first North Korean nuclear tests in 2006, the regime’s messaging shifted: Atomic weapons became vaunted achievements of the Korean people rather than bargaining chips.

Each subsequent round of sanctions induced similar outcomes. When the UN Security Council imposed progressively stricter sanctions in response to nuclear weapons testing, North Korea responded by accelerating its nuclear program, engaging in 220 missile tests from 2014 to 2022.

Cut off from international markets and networks, North Korean nuclear scientists synthesized solid propellant for missiles, miniaturized warheads, and attempted to develop hydrogen bombs. The Hwasong-18 intercontinental ballistic missile revealed in February 2023, which has a solid fuel rocket motor and is allegedly capable of carrying multiple nuclear warheads, exemplifies these developments.

Meanwhile, the collapse of diplomacy between North Korea and the West eliminated potential avenues for de-escalation and off-ramping. Six-party talks between 2006 and 2009 collapsed from a lack of compromise, while briefly hopeful moments like the Trump-Kim 2018 summit produced only vague commitments to “denuclearization” that led nowhere. North Korea saw the 2011 overthrow of Libyan ruler Muammar Qaddafi, only eight years after he abandoned nuclear weapons in exchange for sanctions relief, as a cautionary tale. Today, despite decades of continuous and stringent sanctions, North Korea is a nuclear state with a growing atomic arsenal and little incentive to disarm.

Iran: the road not taken. Unlike the linear North Korean march toward nuclear acquisition, Iran demonstrates how the sanctions paradox can create volatile and cyclic patterns of escalation and de-escalation. Iran’s nuclear program began under the Pahlavi royal dynasty in the 1950s, initially with American support. The 1979 revolution in Iran changed this dynamic, with the hostage crisis leading to asset freezes and trade embargoes. Eventually, the United States and its allies implemented sweeping restrictions on Iran’s energy, shipping, banking, and arms sectors, leading to sequential humanitarian crises. In the early 2000s, revelations of undeclared enrichment facilities in Iran made the nuclear component central to the sanctions. As oil revenue plummeted and inflation ballooned, the sanctions paradox kicked in.

The Iranian regime under Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei pointed to the economic hardship as evidence of Western aggression. Nuclear development became a matter of dignity rather than political posturing; potential domestic discontent over economic mismanagement turned into unity against a common enemy. This narrative was especially potent in Iran because of Western involvement in the 1953 coup that overthrew Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh and the strong support of Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war. Even as sanctions ravaged the Iranian economy, they created a siege mentality that strengthened the domestic regime rather than weakening it.

The comprehensive sanctions against Iran also spurred significant technological and strategic innovation. Cut off from international markets, Iran developed extensive indigenous capabilities, especially in uranium enrichment. The country built hardened nuclear facilities at Fordow, Natanz, and elsewhere, while the “resistance economy” became self-sufficient. Internet warfare capabilities, drone technology, and regional proxy groups all advanced.

Escalation cycles also became self-reinforcing. Iran could justify each expansion of its enrichment capacity or uranium stockpiles by pointing to new sanctions. Though the Iran nuclear deal that took effect in 2016 was working, according to International Atomic Energy Agency reports that repeatedly verified Iranian compliance, US withdrawal from the deal in 2018 turned the plan’s central mechanism on its head. Incremental compliance for incremental sanctions relief turned into incremental escalation that led to incremental tightening of sanctions. When the United States eventually reinstated maximum pressure, Iran enriched uranium to near weapons-grade percentages. Iran has now approached the precipice of nuclear breakout.

The brief success of the nuclear deal demonstrates that breaking the sanctions paradox is possible. The deal’s demise demonstrates the importance of crafting sanctions that fundamentally reckon with the mechanisms of the sanctions paradox.

Better policy, better outcomes. While the threat of sanctions has been effective in dissuading countries from pursuing nuclear weapons, sanctions have sometimes been counterproductive once imposed. These failures highlight the need for alternative sanction policies that include multilateral coordination, credible off-ramps, and de-escalation pathways.

Unlike comprehensive sanctions, targeted sanctions take actions against specific sectors or entities (such as military or intelligence groups) to freeze assets, hamper progress, and restrict technologies—for example, using export controls to prevent the spread of weapons and dual-use technologies without hampering overall trade. Targeted sanctions keep the door open to diplomacy while pressuring decision makers. Comprehensive sanctions, on the other hand, are economy-wide restrictions that can turn nuclear weapons into existential necessities.

Sanctions are most effective when they are coordinated among major powers and target specific entities, individuals, and sectors involved with nuclear proliferation, rather than entire populations. For example, sanctions against Iran were more successful than those against North Korea in part due to their multilateralism. Such approaches minimize humanitarian harm and reduce the risk of a broad political backlash, while still maintaining consistent pressure on decision makers in sanctioned countries.

Credible off-ramps provide would-be nuclear powers with opportunities to save face, de-escalate, and return to compliance. De-escalation can include tiered or phased sanctions relief tied to concrete and verifiable de-weaponization, or third-party mediation. The Iran nuclear deal’s structure of incremental compliance for incremental sanctions relief still serves as a (fragile) model.

Here’s one example, borrowed from the Iran nuclear deal, of how an incremental ladder of sanctions could be constructed:

Step 1: The state freezes uranium or plutonium enrichment at a specific low-grade percent. In return, the state is awarded general licenses for pharmaceutical products and food.

Step 2: The state verifiably destroys or relinquishes highly enriched or weapons-grade uranium stockpiles. Limited oil exports are then allowed.

Step 3: The state adopts or re-adopts the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Additional Protocol, which provides access to information and locations that can reveal undeclared nuclear material and activities. In exchange, financial channels are opened again through correspondent banks (financial middlemen), which reestablish access to the global economy and money-transfer systems.

Policy makers must build off-ramping mechanisms into sanctions from their inception. Without them, sanctions can corner states and unnecessarily escalate crises.

While sanctions remain a powerful tool, policy makers should stop treating them as a universal solution. When sanctions are carefully calibrated and tied to verifiable steps, they might succeed in pulling countries back from the nuclear precipice. Humanitarian channels must be preserved, the military-technical nuclei of programs should be targeted rather than the entire society, and de-escalation should be politically achievable for both sides. The alternative is dangerous: a repetitive cycle of pressure, siege, and innovation.